managed in the early thirties by James Oglethorpe, kept up the unequal
contest until 1751 when it was dissolved.

The company régime under the several flags was particularly dominant on the
coasts most esteemed in the seventeenth century; and in that century they
reached a comity of their own on the basis of live and let live. The French
were secured in the Senegal sphere of influence and the English on the
Gambia, while on the Gold Coast the Dutch and English divided the trade
between them. Here the two headquarters were in forts lying within sight
of each other: El Mina of the Dutch, and Cape Coast Castle of the English.
Each was commanded by a governor and garrisoned by a score or two of
soldiers; and each with its outlying factories had a staff of perhaps a
dozen factors, as many sub-factors, twice as many assistants, and a few
bookkeepers and auditors, as well as a corps of white artisans and an
abundance of native interpreters, boatmen, carriers and domestic servants.
The Dutch and English stations alternated in a series east and west, often
standing no further than a cannon-shot apart. Here and there one of them
had acquired a slight domination which the other respected; but in the case
of the Coromantees (or Fantyns) William Bosman, a Dutch company factor
about 1700, wrote that both companies had "equal power, that is none at
all. For when these people are inclined to it they shut up the passes so
close that not one merchant can come from the inland country to trade with
us; and sometimes, not content with this, they prevent the bringing of
provisions to us till we have made peace with them." The tribe was in fact
able to exact heavy tribute from both companies; and to stretch the treaty
engagements at will to its own advantage.[5] Further eastward, on the
densely populated Slave Coast, the factories were few and the trade
virtually open to all comers. Here, as was common throughout Upper Guinea,
the traits and the trading practices of adjacent tribes were likely to
be in sharp contrast. The Popo (or Paw Paw) people, for example, were so